He left a note for Bob, explaining the situation, and walked back into town. He kept seeing Gert--that clear shake of her head, no. Claude had left the Depresso. Patrick reconsidered driving to Willow's and again decided that he shouldn't. He drank a beer and went home. As he settled into bed, he realized that even though he hadn't seen Willow, she had been there in some sense. He could have seen her. If he had, she would have been helpful. Thinking of that wasn't as good as having her next to him in bed, but it was still good, more than he was used to. "Night, Baby," he said and fell asleep. 8 Willow brought home strawberries and made a shortcake. "Real whipped cream," Amber said. "Of course." Willow reached into the refrigerator. "Trumpet flourish, please." "Ta da, teedle-oop tee tooo," Amber obliged. "Champagne?" "A modest vintage, as AhnRee would say. I celebrate. We celebrate." "You got laid--that's obvious." Willow poured two glasses. "Biology," she toasted. "Fucking," Amber said. "Yumm." "God," Willow said, licking her lips, "strawberries and champagne . . . Truly, it was a revelation." "It, Patrick?" "Patrick, yes. The whole thing." "It wasn't the first time," Amber said. "It might as well have been." Willow's face lit up. Amber took another bite of shortcake. "Art's taking me to Nantucket." "Far out! Moby Dick." "Shrimp cocktail, gin and tonic--a great way to end the summer. Want to come?" "End the summer?" Willow blinked. "No. I mean, I'm working. I don't want to end the summer. A terrible idea." "It is." Amber sipped champagne gravely. "It isn't really the end. Art doesn't want to go until he finishes the outside of his barn. Two weeks, he thinks. But after that, it will be the first or second week in August. We might as well see a few things on the way home--and have a week or so before school." "School?" Willow twirled her glass. "I'm not going back," she said. "Let this be a formal announcement: I hereby renounce Stanford AND the privileges associated thereunto AND all obligation to write useless papers AND all requirements to be stuck in crowded rooms with people who are dumb, bored, or lying." "How sweet of you," Amber said. "Present company excepted, of course." "I would think long and hard on this one," Amber said. "It's the privileges part. And your family will freak out. What are you going to do?" Willow put _Highway 61 Revisited_ on the stereo. "That's it," she said. "That's the point. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I'm going to find out. I'm going to do what I want and not what someone else wants." "Is it Patrick? Has he caused you to lose your mind completely?" Amber smiled as she asked, and Willow saw that Amber had already accepted this new reality and was being a good friend, playing devil's advocate. "It's about finding my mind." Amber came over and hugged her. "I'll make enough for both of us," she said.